Many cleaning products, including shampoo, body wash, dentifrice, and hard surface cleaners, are sold containing water. The water in the formula adds to the weight of the products and translates into greater shipping and storage costs. Additionally, these types of products also have disadvantages in terms of packaging, storage, transportation, and convenience of use.
In order to use many cleaning products, the user must dispense the cleaning product from a bottle or other closed vessel onto the target surface, and then utilizing a sponge, towel, brush, or other implement distribute the product on the surface and, if desired, absorb any excess product, potentially with another implement or substrate.
This practice is widely used, but is often inefficient. For instance, when a caregiver washes a pet she must wet the pet, open the shampoo, put shampoo on the pet, rub the shampoo into the pet's coat, and then rinse the pet. This process must be repeated multiple times to clean the entire pet and it can be particularly difficult to adequately clean the legs, abdomen, and buttocks of the animal. Furthermore, if the caregiver is using a bottled shampoo, she must repeatedly handle the shampoo container with wet, slippery, soapy hands to dispense shampoo. All of this must be done while keeping the pet in the washing area. Since washing a pet can be difficult, the user may rush and not thoroughly clean the pet.
It would be desirable to have a cleaning product combined with an implement to make cleaning more efficient. However, making these combination products can be cumbersome. For instance, some products have a cleaning product sprayed onto an outer surface of an assembled cleaning implement and a drying step is required before the cleaning product can be packaged. Other combination products have a cleaning composition residing within a cleaning implement, however, processing steps, such as adding texture to a surface of the cleaning implement, must be completed before the cleaning composition is combined with the other parts of the cleaning implement.
It would also be desirable for such a cleaning product to capture the removed soil from the animate and/or inanimate surfaces being cleaned.
Accordingly, there is a need for a laminate cleaning implement comprising a substrate that provides cleaning benefits, soil capture benefits, streamlines the cleaning process, and allows for a simplified manufacturing method. The cleaning implement can eliminate the need to carry and store cumbersome bottles, bars, jars, tubes, and other forms of clutter associated with cleaning products. Additionally, the cleaning implement can be designed to provide superior cleaning to the intended surface and soil removal from the intended surface. Furthermore, if the laminate cleaning implement is disposable it can be more sanitary than using a sponge, washcloth, or other cleaning implement intended for extensive reuse, because such implements can develop bacterial growth, unpleasant odors, and other undesirable characteristics related to repeated use.